Charity shops are often popular with people who are frugal, people who live on a limited or fixed income, collectors, and people with unusual tastes."

People with unusual tastes? How nicely put Wikipedia!

Random fact; when was the first charity shop opened (in the UK)?

"In the 19th century the Salvation Army ran second hand clothing shops to provide the urban poor with cheap clothing. Other charities also operated shops during the Second World War to raise money for the war effort and relieve hardship. However, modern charity shops as we understand them - retail units selling overwhelmingly donated goods to raise as much cash as possible for the parent charity - did not appear until after WWII. The first of these was opened by Oxfam in 1947/48 and is still in operation today. Oxfam had been swamped by donations from the public (mostly blankets and clothing) following its appeal for aid to alleviate the post-war situation in Greece. The success of this appeal yielded so many donations that it was decided to set up a shop in Oxford to sell a portion of these and to use the profits to further fund aid in Greece."

From British charity shops to American thrift stores, here is a thrifting blog absolutely worth a read; Things I found at the thrift store written by a 28 year old male who lives in the Twin Cities, United States. He documents "thrifting, frugality, upcycling, and green living tips for the modern thrifter"

With tips and hints of what to look out for in thrift stores, from Manolo Blahniks to Beanie babies (witten by guest blogger Jess Burg). He writes a brutally honest post How I paid my rent for 6 months by thrifting Quote: "The thrill of scoring something you know isn’t supposed to be in there for $2.99 is the best feeling in the world. It’s a rush and it’s frankly why I manifested it into this blog."

"We’ve all seen it so this one is pretty much self-explanatory. The tighty-whiteys on the wire clip hanger. I don’t know who is buying these or why stores really even bother to sell them. If they’re in the package fine, but I’m still not buying them. How much is a packet of new underwear anyways? It can’t be THAT much more expensive to rest assured knowing that your drawers didn’t touch some other persons naynay or heehee, right? CAN I GET AN AMEN!"